


We Might Be Exactly Like We Were

by hesterbyrde



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Depression, Drinking, Hand Jobs, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, frank discussion of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 15:03:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15821316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hesterbyrde/pseuds/hesterbyrde
Summary: When he first woke up from the ice, Steve counted days to ground himself.Actually, that wasn't completely accurate. He counted hours at first. Taught himself how to pass the time in the bewildering and often overwhelming new world he found himself in. Structure came first.Steve bracketed his days by running in the mornings and going to the gym at night. Time between the two was spent learning. He drew, journaled, and looked up the myriad of suggestions people made about movies or music. A great time-spender was Wikipedia. He could lose hours tumbling down the rabbit hole of world events and not feel the least bit guilty about it.In short, he built a routine out of the hours. Something calculable and predictable that helped him take stock of the new life he was trying to create for himself. His place in this new world that seemed to be just as in need of Captain America as it had been decades ago.Hours became days. Days became weeks. Weeks into months and then a few years. There was the Battle of New York and the Avengers were assembled, but not much changed for him. He kept his flat in Brooklyn and his carefully constructed routine.





	We Might Be Exactly Like We Were

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings all!
> 
> And welcome to my very first Stucky fic! This is canon-divergent after Winter Soldier... mostly just because I miss that era of Stucky fic, y'know?
> 
> A note of warning: this fic has some very frank talk about depression symptoms. There's no mentions of suicide or self harm. More the gray I-don't-know-what-day-it-is malaise... but it has a happy ending! I promise there's a happy ending.
> 
> The fic title is taken from the song "When We Were Young" by Adele.
> 
> Many thanks to my beta readers KaminaDuck and Eria. They are both made of starlight and I appreciate their help with this fic so so so much. You can find KaminaDuck over on Tumblr and on Twitch. And you can find Eria's fanfic here on AO3 under the handle tenaciousAeolai.
> 
> And last but not least... thank YOU for reading! I live for kudos and comments so please let me know if you've enjoyed this.
> 
> Much love!

When he first woke up from the ice, Steve counted days to ground himself.

Actually, that wasn't completely accurate. He counted hours at first. Taught himself how to pass the time in the bewildering and often overwhelming new world he found himself in. Structure came first.

Steve bracketed his days by running in the mornings and going to the gym at night. Time between the two was spent learning. He drew, journaled, and looked up the myriad of suggestions people made about movies or music. A great time-spender was Wikipedia. He could lose hours tumbling down the rabbit hole of world events and not feel the least bit guilty about it. It was strangely easy to waste time when the Internet was involved. But Wikipedia? He was just catching up with the times. And he enjoyed learning about other things too… modern cooking for one. Definitely an improvement over the 1940s what with the nice stovetops and food that actually tasted like something. And there was that channel on TV that was nothing but people teaching you how to cook? That was a huge help. On more than a few occasions, he caught himself losing track of time just watching those shows.

In short, he built a routine out of the hours. Something calculable and predictable that helped him take stock of the new life he was trying to create for himself. His place in this new world that seemed to be just as in need of Captain America as it had been decades ago.

Hours became days. Days became weeks. Weeks into months and then a few years. There was the Battle of New York and the Avengers were assembled, but not much changed for him. He kept his flat in Brooklyn and his carefully constructed routine. 

But as his place in the world took shape, it also began to shift. Slipping sideways slowly, like a glacier grinding over the earth. His successful leadership in New York had been noted and so SHIELD missions came into the mix. Nick Fury convinced him it was necessary to move to Washington D.C. in order to be closer to the machinations of SHIELD, and with that came bigger changes. A new apartment. New colleagues. Gym time turned to training time at the Triskelion with Natasha and the STRIKE team, though he still went running on his own in the mornings. With new people came more suggestions of music and movies, but he found himself indulging less and less once he got a record player for his apartment. And of course, he always found time for visiting Peggy. 

And when he was feeling really low... When the memories and old hurts piled up over his head, there were the trips to the museum. He tried to keep those to once a week though. A lance through the sore, not habitual self-mortification. That was not a routine he wanted to indulge any more than was necessary. But it was necessary sometimes.

All in all, it wasn't awful. Better in a lot of ways than growing up poor and sickly in Brooklyn in the 40s. The food really was an improvement, especially when he cooked it himself. And the coffee too. Modern coffee was amazing. Even just plain black coffee. Nevermind the fancier stuff that Natasha liked. 

In short, there were comforts that were something other than company, and that wasn't nothing. And even though he missed Bucky, and Peggy seemed to be slipping further and further away with every visit... he had to admit, it wasn't a bad life. There just seemed to be a few cracks in it. And maybe they would fill in with time, just like they had before he went in the ice. It had only been a few years after all.

But after waking up in the hospital, with Bucky having appeared and then once again seeming to have dropped off the face of the earth, it suddenly didn't seem to matter anymore. The time… the hours… the tenuous life he'd built for himself. It call came apart at the seams. The cracks in his life had been suddenly and violently blasted apart and the whole of the sky seemed to have fallen down around his ears. Everything was numb. Everything was cold. And all he could hear was static. 

All he could see was Bucky's confused, panic-stricken face as he promised him just as he had been promised so many decades ago…

_Til the end of the line…_

He couldn't really count the days spent in the hospital, as he spent at least two or three drifting about in a haze of experimental painkillers waiting on his bones to knit themselves back together. But after that? He lost all ability to count after that. Maybe on purpose. Maybe not. 

Probably not.

How many days had it been? He'd gone home from the hospital with Sam instead of back to his apartment. Because his apartment was still a crime scene, full of bloodstains and bullet holes. He'd testified before a bunch of guys in suits and military uniforms. He'd talked to Nick at the cemetery. And to Natasha. She'd given him a file. And a warning. And a kiss on the cheek that he could still feel when he thought about it.

But… that was a long time ago wasn't it? How many days had it been? How long ago had he fallen into the water only to find himself re-baptized into this strange cracked life. How many days since their last lead from the dossier? Since their last self-appointed mission? Since the last crushing failure that had yielded not a glimpse. Not even a hint of where they should go next.

Steve couldn't keep time anymore. 

But Sam did. Sam moved Steve in next door, into a little freestanding house so close to his that they could fist bump through the open windows. And from that close vantage point, he had gently but firmly insisted on routine. Steve didn't resist. No doubt that in this instance, Sam knew best. Steve was tired of fighting anyway. Tired of fighting with no reason to fight but someone else's word. The only fight he was interested in was with HYDRA.

And with anyone who was standing between him and Bucky.

So he didn't fight Sam and his efforts to build a routine that cemented together their efforts to find Bucky. He was sincere on all fronts, so Steve couldn't argue. And some distant part of him that wasn't completely encased in grief and guilt conceded that Sam was probably right. He couldn't search for Bucky from under the quilt on his bed. This would keep him in good condition for keeping up the search. For keeping up the fight. He needed to do this if he was going to find Bucky.

Routine took shape again, and it was shaped like this. Running in the mornings. ( _On your left… on your left… on your left…_ It made Sam smile, anyway.) Showers after. There was always time set aside to study the dossier and make necessary phone calls and inquiries. Food at regular intervals. Music while they made dinner together. A movie or an episode of some show while they ate. "Good night" and "See you in the morning."

There would be dark and then sunrise.

Repeat.

It wasn't exactly like this every day, of course. There was time for Peggy. And time to himself. The only major change between before and after was this. 

He didn't go to the museum. Sam even offered to take him, if company would make it better but Steve declined, politely but pointedly. He didn't trust himself not to make a scene. He plugged that energy into the dossier instead. 

But that was the shape of it. Not too much different from before.

And yet everything was different from before. Bucky was alive and that changed everything. It changed the way the sun looked. The way food tasted. The way his morning run felt. It changed why he was running in the first place. Everything felt different because it changed the nature of the weight Steve had carried with him like Atlas after the train incident. And now at least, unlike Atlas, Steve's burden had been given a handle.

Two handles, really.

A thin file from Kiev and running with Sam every morning.

How long had it been? Steve didn't keep count anymore. He didn't even keep count of their excursions to far-flung places to search for Bucky. There was just the one they were on. The one they were planning. And a miserable pile of failures that Steve couldn't think about or the black pit he balanced over would swallow him whole.

But it wasn't all drudging domestic routine and missions built on flimsy fruitless leads, though. Sam was savvier than that and he had made a deal with Steve regarding their attempts to find Bucky. They'd make as many trips as it took. They'd never stop looking until they found him. They'd look as long as they had to, as far away as they had to, until they found him and brought him home.

But once. Between missions, they would go out to a nightclub. Just once while they plotted their next move. It always took a couple of weeks, at least, to get their affairs in order, so Sam would take Steve out for an evening during that time. Not to one of those crazy, hopping affairs shown in the movies with the bright lights and the music so loud Steve could feel the bass rattle in his back teeth. No, no, Sam was smarter, saner, and kinder than that. 

Their usual spot was a sedate place - a jazz club where a three piece band and a pretty girl in a passably accurate 40s dress crooned modern versions of tunes familiar to Steve, as well as a smattering of original work. The joint was clean but not full of itself. None of the tables matched, nor did the chairs. And it was dim inside, with all the lamps encased in mismatched stained glass made dingy by cigarette smoke, even though smoking had been banned here years ago. It was not a place you went for ambiance, or to see and be seen. Crowds were minimal and the people who did show up were more interested in the music than in socializing. And they were older, much older than the usual nightclub crowd.

Steve had to admit that it was not awful. It was very different from the music halls back in the day where there was more dancing and socializing, but that wasn't a bad thing. He hadn't liked those places either back in the day. That's what he kept telling himself anyway. It was the truth and he just needed to convince himself of it. Find a way to not resist. At least for a little while. Long enough to satisfy Sam who, to his credit, never made the evening drag on too long. They always stayed long enough for two drinks. Maybe two sets of songs at most. And again, the band was good. The atmosphere was good. Even the time spent with Sam was good, despite the fact that they were more often together than not these days. It was nice to have his company in a different way. He clearly enjoyed himself even if Steve had to force himself to, and that wasn't nothing.

It wasn't their fault that Steve was too broken-hearted to enjoy anything.

Steve didn't tell Sam, but he made a game out of the music. Just to distract himself if, or more accurately, when his thoughts turned inward. It was a game to make the unfamiliarity a good thing. Something entertaining that didn't have sharp edges. 

The game was thus: he'd see if he could figure out the old tune buried in the modern intro before the girl started singing. He was getting better at it. They would need some new stuff soon, but they still could catch him by surprise. Lately, he liked it best when they did what Sam had identified as “mashups.” Two tunes melding into one song. He was getting pretty good at guessing those, too. And he had to admit that it impressed him. It probably took some serious talent and creativity to figure out how to lace two unrelated songs together like that. He would even sing along sometimes. 

But tonight, he was having a hard time distracting himself. He and Sam were flying out first thing in the morning, and his mind was already half on the plane. He was looking forward to the peculiar sort of sleep that only long plane rides is brought. Not exactly restful, and never at all restorative, but it was an escape all the same. A place for his tired mind to just stop for a an hour or two… his head full of memories and full of that stupid, useless file. All the facts and statistics and details he wished he never knew - they hung in his thoughts like barbed wire. And he would be grateful for the chance to just… stop. Guilt free if not anxiety free as well. If he couldn’t feed the anxious beast that coiled in his chest, sharpening its teeth on his ribs, he could at least make it sleep.

Steve shook his head and tried to focus on the singer again. And he took a sip of the beer he'd been working on for the last hour. It was a somewhat desperate attempt to ground himself in his surroundings. Be here now. Mission tomorrow, but be present now. 

_Taste your beer. Listen to the music. If only for Sam…_

He took another drink and found himself polishing off the bottle. Another nice thing about this place was the beer selection. Sure, the serum meant he couldn't get drunk, but Steve had learned to appreciate good beer since being thawed. And Sam, in an effort to invite variety and appreciation into Steve's life, had encouraged his curiosity about all the varieties of beer available nowadays. If he couldn't get drunk, he could at least be entertained.

The band struck up another tune; one of their originals, not a cover. Steve recognized it, remembering it being melancholy which, as usual, he needed no help with at the moment. He glanced back at the bar and saw not a soul was waiting to be served. Just one guy in a hooded sweatshirt at the far end of the bar with his shoulders curled around whatever was his poison of choice. So with a nod to Sam and a shake of his empty bottle, he signaled he was going for a second round. Sam nodded back in response, but stayed put, his eyes on the singer.

"Evening, Jack." Steve pushed himself to smile as he approached the bar.

"Good evening, Steve." the bartender replied with a genuine grin of his own peeking out from under his waxed mustache. "Another of the same or something different?"

"It's been a few weeks. Anything new?" Steve asked, setting his empty bottle up on the bar.

"As a matter of fact, I do." Jack replied, waving a finger at him. "Dunno how you feel about German beer given…"

"Oh, I like German beer just fine. It was never the Germans I had a problem with." His smile lost some of its forceful edge. He might've actually laughed a little.

"Fair enough, fair enough." Jack said, taking his bottle. "It's a cherry beer, but I think it's still in the back. Let me run grab one from the walk in. It'll be nice and cold."

"Sure thing. Take your time, Jack." Steve replied, leaning on the counter as the bartender slipped into the back.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve noticed that the guy in the hooded sweatshirt had turned towards him. The move was subtle, just a slight change in posture. A twist of shoulders and a turn of the head, but it was enough for Steve to notice. And when he glanced over and when his eyes agreed to register what he was seeing... the world dropped out from under him. 

The band was gone. The bar was gone. The people were all gone. All the air in the room was gone. Suddenly, there was nothing but him and a heartrendingly familiar face layered in shadows from the dingy overhead light.

_Bucky._

Plain as day, just sitting there at the bar like he belonged there. No outward sign he recognized Steve. He was just staring with flinty eyes set in a sharp, but unkempt face. Just a cold, hard stare. Which was recognition enough, as his gaze wormed its way through Steve's gut.

Steve gaped like a landed fish. For how long he didn't know. His legs felt like they were encased in cement and the air was suddenly thick. Almost too heavy to pull into his lungs, but sucked in all at once as he started towards Bucky with stumbling steps.

But before he could make it, Bucky raised one hand. His left. Covered with a worn leather glove, Steve realized belatedly. It froze him where he stood. Two seconds later, Jack returned with a tall beer glass in hand, filled to the brim with a deep red beer frothed with pink foam.

"A Kriekbier!" he pronounced, with a wave of his hand as he placed it on the bar. "Brewed with sour cherries. You like those Flanders reds so this might also be up your alley."

The forced smile returned, now edged with a trace of panic. "Thanks, Jack. How-how much?"

"On the house." Jack replied, not looking up as he picked up a glass and a dishrag.

Steve felt himself shaking his head on autopilot, but everything was completely numb with Bucky sitting there… just fucking sitting there not six feet away and Steve was having to pretend that everything was normal. Carry on a normal conversation like a normal human being. Like the world hadn't fallen out from under him.

Again.

"I insist." Jack said spinning the glass against the rag in his hand before gesturing with it. "Try it. Tell me if you like it. I want to know if I should stock it or not. Then you can buy it from me."

"Yeah… yeah, okay sure. Thanks Jack." Steve wasn't sure how he was managing to talk. Everything was on autopilot. All his higher brain function was focused at the far end of the bar.

"I'm going to pop to the back and take care of a few things." Jack said, wiping his hands on his apron. 

"Sure, sure." Steve answered with a bob of his head, hoping to God he looked and sounded calm and casual. He was not going to be able to keep his cool much longer.

"Are you good?" he was talking to Bucky now, which made the coils of anxiety in Steve's stomach tighten, almost painfully. So much so that he thought he might be sick. It was as if it shocked him that anyone could see Bucky but him. Like he was sure it was an illusion. Or that this was a dream.

"I'm good." Bucky replied, an affable but tired smile stretched his lips as he raised a faceted glass. The expression looked strange. That was not how he used to smile.

"Good. Will you shout for me if someone comes in?"

He was talking to Steve again now and he had to physically shake himself in order to respond. "Sure, Jack."

When the bartender had disappeared again, Steve and Bucky locked eyes once more. That almost-human smile melted from his face like a sheet of ice the instant Jack was around the corner. Steve felt his heart leap into his throat with such force it nearly choked him. What should he do? Could he talk to him? Could he approach now? 

As if sensing the wild turmoil that surged in Steve's mind, Bucky, face still a coldly neutral mask, kicked the stool next to him back about a foot. He flicked his eyes to it before squaring his shoulders to the bar again and pulling the hood of his sweatshirt forward.

Steve took the invitation at once, glancing once at Sam back over by the stage.

"Don't worry about him." Bucky said, his voice flat and neutral as his expression. "He's going to be distracted with the singer for a bit."

Steve tried not to stare with a look of flabbergasted shock. Shock at him being here at all, sure, but also at the idea that he might be making a joke. Or at least a snide comment. Steve searched his face for any sign, but the panicked static in his head prevented him from processing anything he was seeing. 

Other than Bucky's profile where it poked out of the hood of his jacket, the bar seemed to fade into a hazy static. It was all completely surreal. He still wasn't convinced he wasn't hallucinating or dreaming.

"Drink your beer." Bucky instructed flatly, nodding towards the glass clasped between his hands. 

Steve did, barely tasting it as it passed his lips. It had been a long time since he'd wished he could get drunk. Now would be an amazing time. Maybe the clamor in his head would subside if he could just-

"I went to your exhibit in the Smithsonian."

Steve nodded and swallowed to wet his mouth. "Uh. Uh-huh." Was all he could muster. Not even words. Just grunting acknowledgement in hopes he would keep talking. Could he just keep talking? Steve went to the museum just to hear his voice, and now here it was. Just right fucking there next to him.

"I'm starting to remember things. Or… or I know I should be trying to." he went on, swirling amber colored liquid around in his glass Steve. "This… I think this is why I was never thawed out very long. I think it starts to come back."

"That's… that's good though? Right?"

"I… don't know." Bucky said turning his steel-colored gaze on Steve. "Is… is it something I want to remember? Because there are things I do remember that I don't want to. But the museum made it seem like… I don't know."

Steve swallowed again. Harder this time. And then took a drink to try and wash down the lump forming in his throat. He needed to talk… needed to tell him… if he could just tell him, would he remember? But what could he tell him? What would do him justice?

"You were… are… are a good man, Buck." he managed the simplicity of the words sticking awkwardly in his teeth. "Bucky. Do… do you remember that name?"

"I remember you calling me that on the bridge." came the reply, measured as carefully as gunpowder. "That's not what the museum called me, except when they were talking about… about me and you. They said my name was James Buchanan Barnes. But that "Bucky" was what you called me."

"What everyone called you." Steve supplied.

"Because you did."

The confidence of that statement made a little frisson of hope begin to bubble in Steve's chest. "Do… do you remember it now?"

Bucky shook his head, lips pressed into a thin line. "I feel like it's all true. I feel like it's true because…" He stopped and swallowed. "Because I don't think you'd lie."

"I'd never lie to you, Buck."

"You'd never lie to anyone. You'd be God awful at it, anyway." Bucky took a drink, but not before pulling a smirk around the rim of the glass.

Steve felt an involuntary smile tug at his lips. He might not remember ribbing him constantly, but that didn't mean he'd forgotten how to do it. God, he should get him together with Natasha on that front. What fun. 

But then he remembered Bucky had...no, the Winter Soldier had shot Natasha years ago. Maybe not such a good idea.

"But you wouldn't lie. And you aren't lying now, so that makes me feel like I remember it." He shook his head. "But I don't really. Not yet. Not any of the stuff from the museum anyway. That was all the war, right?"

"Yeah." Steve said, trying to hide his disappointment behind a long pull on his drink.

"I'm starting to remember stuff from before that though. I think. I remember you differently. From when you were small. And sick. Not whole memories, but I remember… remember…" he trailed off, eyes squinting as if he could pull the memory into focus by force of will alone. 

"We went to school together as kids." Steve said, hoping to be helpful. "After my mom died, we lived together."

"I… I asked you to move in with me."

Steve laughed a little then, but didn't quite finish smiling. "You wouldn't take no for an answer."

"We didn't work together." Bucky continued for him, cutting his eyes over to Steve's face before turning the carefully assembled statement into a question. "Right?"

The effort he was putting into remembering made Steve's heart ache. "No. No, we never worked together… you had a job at the docks. I did odd jobs. And… worked around the flat."

"But we slept together." It almost sounded like an accusation because of how flatly he said it. But his eyes were not unkind. They were curious. And, dared Steve actually think… soft. 

"Yeah." Steve replied, his mouth going dry.

Bucky pivoted his shoulders a little, angling towards Steve. The softness in his eyes sharpened again as he focused on his question. "We… we were a thing? An item?" he struggled for the slang that felt right in his mouth, but he quickly gave up. "You and me?"

"Not… I mean two fellas?" Steve shook his head. "Back then it wasn't… people didn't do that like they do now, you know? But we… I mean… I mean, I…"

"But we would have been. If it had been like it is now."

"I… I like to think so." That tasted like a lie in his mouth, though he meant no deception by it. It was just that he tried specifically not to think about that these days. The "what ifs" and the "maybes." It was too painful. Too much of a fantasy. But… it was also the truth. Especially now. His stranglehold on his hope was not that absolute. He took another drink, and stared at the pink ring of foam around the edge of the glass. He couldn't look at Bucky, who was staring intently at him.

"You remember all that?" Steve settled on asking.

Bucky shook his head, causing some of his stringy hair to come loose from his hood. "I don't know if I remember it or if I'm just… putting it all together." He answered. "But I… I think I remember some things. Just… little flashes."

They were silent for awhile. Steve scrambled for something else to say. He'd rehearsed a thousand different first conversations, but now every idea… every line… every word shriveled on his tongue.

"You've been looking for me." Bucky said finally.

Steve nodded. "Every day." he said, still speaking to his beer glass. "I got… I got my hands on this dossier. It… has your files. Your missions..."

"What did you learn about me?" Guilt all but dripped from his tone.

Steve did look at him then, fixing him with a hard stare of his own. "Nothing." he answered, his voice sharper than he meant it to be. "I didn't learn a damn thing about you. I was just hoping it would tell me where you were. Where you'd gone and how you might've gotten there. Who might have you if… if you'd gone back. If… if you'd been caught and were made to go back. Where they might be keeping you."

"Did you read about what I'd done?"

Steve's lips tightened until they were just a thin line of pink, pressed to bone white. "You didn't do any of it. They made you."

Bucky snorted softly. "I knew you'd say that."

"It's the truth."

"It's your truth." Bucky retorted, words covered in barbs. "Not my truth."

Natasha's voice rang in his ears at that statement. _The truth isn't all things to all people all the time…_

"What do you mean?"

"You don't know what they did or didn't make me do. You don't know what choices I did or didn't have." Bucky leaned on his elbow, making his sleeve hitch up so that the dull light of the overhead lamps caught on the metal of his left wrist. "They trained me. Conditioned me. Fitted me with this arm. Taught me combat techniques and how to operate dozens of different firearms. How to make a bomb and then disarm one. Forced me to learn a dozen languages. Stealth and deep cover techniques. But then… when all that was done? When the memory blocks and the trigger phrases were in place? They'd just thaw me out, and give me a target and a timeframe. Maybe a few parameters like no witnesses, or take one alive but not the other. But from there, that was all me. I was rewarded for efficiency."

"Rewarded how?" The question was out of Steve's mouth before he could bite it from his tongue.

"They put me back on ice quicker." Bucky answered flatly.

Steve let a long cold breath out through his nose. He wanted to get mad. But mad wouldn't help here. “I don’t care what they made you do, Buck.” He said softly, but in a tone dripping in finality. As if there were no argument in the world against it.

But Bucky… he'd always been stubborn, hadn't he? Always one to stand his ground. That didn’t change now. He followed that instinct like a bloodhound on a scent, cutting his eyes over to Steve, sharp as knives concealed in a shirt sleeve. “The Starks, Steve. The "accident" that killed Howard Stark? That was me. Was that in your file?” He spit the words out like bitter bile.

“Yes.” Steve’s tone in answer was just as sharp. It was Bucky's nature to push and provoke, but it was Steve's nature to stand his ground. And he did. “And JFK. And the general in Laos. And the scientist Natasha was escorting for SHIELD… no wait. That wasn’t in the file. I got that account first hand. I actually saw the scar you gave with my own eyes." Steve let the bodycount settle for a moment, watching all their faces flicker behind Bucky's eyes before he continued, gentling his voice. "So believe me when I tell you… I do not care.”

There was a long silence between them as their emotions were allowed to simmer and they both nursed their drinks. The song changed, and Steve glanced back over his shoulder to see if Sam was looking for him. True to Bucky's word, Sam was still enthralled by the singer.

"So everyone thought I was dead." Bucky said after awhile. "How did I die? The museum was vague. Just said I was KIA on a mission in the Alps."

Steve bit his lip before taking another drink. "We were chasing a HYDRA scientist. Dr. Arnim Zola. He was being transported by train, so we used a zip line and boarded looking for him. One of the cars got blown open as we were passing a cliffside and you were hanging on but…" Steve had to stop for a moment to keep himself from pulling a face. "But I couldn't make it to you in time, and you fell. Down over the cliffside."

Bucky nodded a little but made no reply otherwise.

Steve shook his head hard. Tears stung his eyes and he blinked them back. "I should have gone back for you."

"You were always following me weren't you?" Bucky asked, a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth before he waved a hand. The one without a glove. "Don't ask. I don't really remember. But I… I can tell."

Steve just nodded. No sense in hiding the truth. "My greatest failure was in not following you then."

Bucky took a thoughtful drink, and then asked, "Did you get the scientist?"

"What?"

"The scientist we were tailing. Did you get him?"

"Uh. Yeah. Gave him over to the SSR."

"Then you didn't fail your mission." Bucky shrugged.

"I did fail. I failed you." Steve had to bite down on the words to keep from raising his voice and drawing attention. "You were more important to me than any mission. Or you should have been. I should have acted like it."

"And how many lives would have been lost if that Zola guy got away?"

"It didn't matter that we caught him. When HYDRA infiltrated SHIELD they let the bastard go. Ended up preserving him in a bunch of fucking computers so he basically was still alive." Steve replied, one hand tightening on the edge of the table. "So it didn't matter. I let you go for nothing."

Bucky sighed softly, taking it all in and parsing it through behind the clockwork of his eyes. "And then you found out I was alive."

"That I could have saved you if I had gotten to you first." Steve swiped one hand over his face before taking yet another drink. Anything to keep the tightness out of his throat so he could tell him… tell him everything. "Bucky, I… I saw you on that bridge, and it was like… Like… What am I doing? What have I been doing with my life? With this strength I've been given? If I can't…" His voice betrayed him and cracked clean in two.

"If you couldn't protect me." Bucky finished for him.

"I'm…" he paused, licking his lips. "I'm sorry, Buck."

Bucky looked at him for a long time, watching with keenly dispassionate eyes as Steve wrestled with the emotions so clearly cutting across his face. It felt like flipping through a photo album. One full of aching memories and smiling faces of people long dead. A photo album Steve carried with him every day.

"I forgive you." Bucky said finally.

Steve squinted a little in surprise. "What?"

"You… I'm pretty sure you won't listen if I say that it's not your fault or that you couldn't have done anything. No matter how true that is. So… I forgive you then. Will… will you at least listen to that?"

Steve sniffed back the unshed tears and cracked a rather miserable looking smile. "Yeah… yeah, Buck. I'll listen to that." He reached out on impulse before he could stop himself and clapped Bucky gently on the shoulder. Shock seized him at the contact, but Bucky didn't pull away. He just gave him a smile of his own, steeped equally in sadness and wanting.

Steve looked down in his glass and realized he was down to the last swallow of his beer. He glanced over and noticed Bucky had finished his drink and was just fidgeting with the lone ice cube left in the bottom. He looked down in his own glass again. Maybe he could split it in two without seeming awkward. But when it was gone, was Bucky going to leave? Was this some invented timer he had been on without realizing it? Had he squandered time being miserable and weepy when he could have-

Bucky sensed the turmoil as Steve stared forlornly into his glass. "Finish your beer. Then follow me." He said before he stood from his stool and left.

Steve watched him go, stealing out of the side door quiet as an alley cat. He watched the hunched swagger of his broad shoulders that he knew must be compensating for the arm. It must be abominably heavy. Did it hurt him still? Could it even feel pain? Had Steve hurt him when he'd sent the edge of his shield biting into the metal plates?

He felt the lump rising in his throat again. Hastily, he chased it back down with the last of the beer. Belatedly, he remembered he'd promised to give Jack feedback, but he honestly had no idea how it tasted. His mouth felt like it was filled with ashes and copper. Hastily, he dug in his pockets and left enough cash to cover all three tabs plus tip. And he scrawled a note on a napkin for Jack telling him he'd love to have another of those beers. Technically not a lie, but how could he explain the truth? 

Then with one last glance at Sam, who was still intently watching the singer, caught up in her rendition of "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now," he slipped out the side door as well. He texted Sam when he was out on the street. Something about remembering he still had laundry to do before they left in the morning and he'd just catch a cab.

But maybe they wouldn't need to leave in the morning. Maybe Bucky wou-

 _No. Don't hope,_ he scolded himself as he shook his head and stared down at the sidewalk. _Don't hope for anything just yet._

Out on the street, Steve had a brief moment of panic when he didn't immediately see Bucky. But turning back to look at the building, Steve discovered he'd expertly tucked himself back against the brickwork as he waited for Steve to appear.

"We slept together." Bucky repeated the statement from earlier. It still sounded no less accusatory. 

"Yeah, Buck." Steve admitted.

Bucky closed his eyes, his head falling back against the brick. "I want to believe that I remember that."

Steve's tongue suddenly felt too big for his mouth. "I want you to." 

_Where was he going with this…_

Bucky heaved a soft breath, opening his eyes to visibly deliberate with himself before he finally said, "Then let me take you home."

Steve felt as if the concrete under him had turned to jello and he swayed on the spot. "I…"

Bucky was staring at him intently now. "Let me take you home and remember what I can remember." His eyes smoldered, but with what, Steve couldn't be sure. They just looked different in the amber glow of the streetlights in a way that had nothing to do with the streetlights. 

"Yeah." Steve replied dumbly. "Yeah, okay. Whatever you want, Buck. Whatever… whatever'll help."

Bucky kicked off the brickwork and pivoted hard through the shoulders to turn down the sidewalk. He lead Steve to a narrow alley where a small motorcycle was chained to a rusted fire escape. With a practiced, dead-eyed flick of his gaze, he checked both ways before hauling it out to the street one handed (his left, of course), and then wordlessly he passed Steve one of two open-faced helmets. 

Steve's brain was threatening to short circuit as he turned the helmet over in his hands. 

_He'd brought two helmets. He'd planned this._

Bucky mounted the bike and gestured for Steve to climb on behind him. As he swung his leg over, he was grateful for the engine purring to life and masking the sudden acceleration of his heart rate. Bucky was so close. He was right here. Right fucking here between his legs, pressed to the inseam of his jeans from knee to hip. So close he could feel… no, practically see the heat coming off of his body. After so long apart… separated by time and violence and so much guilt… he was just here.

Steve was so busy trying to regulate his breathing and calm his frazzled nerves that he was nearly thrown off the bike when Bucky hit the gas. Not thinking, Steve flung both arms around Bucky's waist and he was greeted with a face full of Bucky's hair, scattered over the taut lines of his upper back. Steve went rigid as he fought to keep from rubbing his face against the muscled planes of his shoulders, but again Bucky knew what was up, as he always seemed to tonight. His right hand left the handlebars to tangle with Steve's for just a second, pulling him tighter to his waist. Steve felt himself let go a little then, unconsciously but so willingly, molding the curve of his chest to the arch of Bucky's back and pressing his cheek to his spine. And he just breathed. Just gratefully lay there, feeling the warmth and closeness, breathing in tandem with him as the air and the city rushed around them on all sides.

Something started to come loose then. Something gnarled and knotted and still rimed in ancient ice. It had spent years snagged around his ribs. Around his mind, and around his heart. But just the touch… the warmth of Bucky's body seeping through their clothes had it melting in a flash. 

And Steve's treacherous heart betrayed him then. And he wanted. Before he could stop himself he tightened his arms around Bucky's waist, closed his eyes, and let himself want.

Could they just stay like this, with the world rushing by them on all sides? Just in this little pocket dimension atop Bucky's motorcycle where there was nothing but the night air and shared closeness. They didn't have to go back to Steve's house. Bucky didn't have to go back to HYDRA. They didn't have to go anywhere. Could they just ride like this forever?

Of course not. But it was a nice fantasy. Another layer of ice cracking and flaking off.

Bucky didn't ask for directions, but he knew how to get to Steve's house. And somehow Steve couldn't bring himself to be surprised. He'd known the bar they'd be in. He'd seen them there often enough to know Sam would be distracted long enough for them to have a conversation and a drink, and sneak out the door. Steve couldn't even bring himself to worry about it, though the thought that Bucky had been close to hand all this time while they'd been searching the corners of their universe for him… that made something knock painfully against his heart. But he still didn't let himself worry about it. He was tired of fighting, so for once in his long but short life, he just let himself enjoy the ride. Bucky was here and that was all that mattered. How he got him back was of no consequence. That should have frightened him, but it didn't.

When they arrived at his little house, Steve let them in through the side door. He only used the front when Sam would knock to drag him out for their run each morning. 

"You… were you planning to stay the night?" Steve asked, the question coming out entirely too fast as they wove their way through the narrow kitchen. Steve thought about flipping on lights but something stayed his hand. As if he thought light too bright might make Bucky disappear again. Like fog in winter sun.

They were apart again, and Steve felt the absence acutely. A cold, ache… or an itch perhaps that spread over his skin.

"If it's not a problem." Bucky answered, not quite looking at him out of the corner of his eye as he took stock of the little house.

"No no no… no, not at all." The denial came even faster than the original question. "I didn't mean… I was just… I was going to say that if you are, the place is kinda small so you're welcome to my bed. And… the shower's through there." 

Bucky cut him another oblique look, as if he'd parsed something Steve hadn't intended. Or maybe he had… just not so directly.

Once they were out of the kitchen, Bucky drifted to the bank of windows that made up nearly the whole of the walls in the bedroom. It wasn't actually even supposed to be a bedroom. It was labelled a sunroom on the floor plans, but Steve had set up his bedroom there so he could use the tiny closet of an actual bedroom for something of an office. Plus the near constant sunlight kept him from staying in bed all day.

Most of the time.

Steve followed him through his own spaces, seeing the glass ringed room with new eyes as he watched Bucky take it all in. Simple furniture. Not much in the way of knick-knacks memorabilia. No elaborate decor. Not even a houseplant. Just utilitarian everything. Nothing that needed much care. Nothing much in general really. The realization struck Steve for the first time that he could probably be packed up and out of there in an hour if he had to be. 

At least it was clean, his rumpled bed sheets aside. But he definitely hadn't banked on having company over any time soon. Probably ever. He'd need to change them while Bucky showered-

"And where are you going to sleep?" Bucky asked, turning to him.

Steve mutely jerked a thumb at the sofa tucked under the center of the picture window. Bucky followed his gesture and frowned. That couch had probably come with the house. It looked softer than the bed and the blue and yellow floral pattern didn't match or even resemble anything else. And it was so small Steve would have to fold himself in half to fit on it.

"If I'm sleeping in your bed, you're sharing it with me. Like we did when we were kids… when..." Bucky had started off in a tone that brooked no argument, but as he kept talking his voice turned hazy. "I want…" he looked up at Steve, the frozen reaches behind his eyes thawing by just a fraction. "I'm trying to remember."

"Okay… okay, Buck." Steve said with a quick nod. "Whatever you want."

It was Bucky's turn to nod, abortive and awkward. "I'm going to take a shower. If that's alright."

"T-towels are in the closet. I'll… I'll get you something to sleep in. Those… all those layers of clothes look uncomfortable in this humidity."

"They are." Bucky replied as he stepped back towards the bathroom. "Thanks."

When Bucky had closed the bathroom door behind him and Steve could hear the water singing through the pipes, he quickly set to work. If he didn't move… work… do _something_ he was going to climb out of his skin with nerves. He changed the sheets on the bed straight away, dumping the old ones in the washer for later. From his chest of drawers, he grabbed a set of soft sleep pants and a tank top, carefully folding them, and going to knock on the bathroom door.

His bones felt frozen with awkwardness as he did so. But Bucky answered a second later.

"Yeah?"

"Leaving your… your sleep clothes on the counter by the sink." Steve stammered. Pajamas had sounded so juvenile in his head, but sleep clothes was no less awkward out loud. 

"Okay, thanks."

Steve gave himself another moment to fuss around the house, picking up stray bits of paper and what not. And he took advantage of the momentary privacy to change into his own pajamas. No sense in making this more awkward than it had to be. He poured and downed a glass of water to try and ease the tightness in his chest, but he knew there would be no real cure for that. No cure save what he had experienced on their motorcycle ride. The closeness that replaced that old hollow ache with a new one made of heat and light.

Finally, Steve gave up on doing anything remotely productive. He paced the house three times, checking locks and looking to see if Sam was home yet. Then he flopped down on the tiny couch by the picture window and just stared off into the gathered dark of the back yard until he heard the latch on the bathroom door click.

Bucky emerged, and Steve quickly discovered he couldn't look at him directly anymore. Not without a liquid hot flush creeping up his neck. Bucky was cleanly shaven, with his wet hair slicked back away from his face, barefoot and dressed in Steve's clothes and-

A SHIELD shirt, Steve belatedly realized. The fractal eagle distorted slightly where it stretched across Bucky's pecs. But Steve couldn't deny it looked good. It all looked good. He looked so good cleaned up and in Steve's things… and for a moment Steve wondered if this was what it might've been like for them if not for… for everything. He felt the lump rising in his throat again, bringing the threat of tears this time.

He just looked so so so…

Good. 

And right. So good and right. This might've been what he would have been… what they might've been together. Time and place didn't matter. The only thing that had ever mattered was that they were together.

If Bucky noticed Steve having a crisis of reality, he gave no sign. He just joined him on the couch, curling up against the other arm rest and flinging his elbow over the back. A perfect dark mirror to Steve's position.

The arm was really exposed at this angle. The metal one. Steve couldn't think of it as Bucky's arm. Just… the arm. With its red star and wicked looking silver plates. And that seam of scar tissue that welded together man and machine.

Bucky caught him looking and flexed it a little at the elbow, catching the sparse light on the joints. But he said nothing. Just kept staring out into the empty night.

"Show it to me." Steve said softly, glancing up at Bucky's face and then back at the arm.

"You already got to see it up close, Steve." Bucky replied, glancing down at the back of his hand, pedaling his fingers against the top of his thigh. "I nearly caved your skull in with it."

Steve ignored it and tried again, eyes and voice going hard. "Show me what they did to you."

But the keen hooks of Bucky's perception snagged on the unsaid words. "I already forgave you for this, Steve."

"Then show it to me." he pressed. "I want to see it. You want to remember and I want to know."

Bucky blinked once, and Steve thought for a second he was about to get a very firm no. And he would have taken it that time. But then Bucky scooted closer, his knee slipping between the couch cushions as he turned perpendicular to Steve. And Steve felt himself involuntarily make room, leaning back against the arm of the couch and angling his hips, almost as if to catch him. It was a small wonder that he didn't just reach out. Just pull him in like this. Arm and all.

After they'd shifted, there was a flex of real muscle and a flicker of effort across Bucky's brow, and the plates of the arm rippled in quick succession like a fan of cards. It reminded Steve of Tony's suit with all its moving parts. He wondered how nothing got pinched… for either of them. 

And the sound it made… the tinkle of metal against metal and the whirring of impossibly tiny parts. It wrung something deep within Steve's chest, as if that metal fist were clutching up around something there.

Maybe it was...

Bucky initiated another wave of motion down the arm, but this time the plates remained splayed apart revealing the internal mechanisms. The tinny whirring and whining of the fine mechanisms was louder now. Sharper. And it hurt more. But Steve made himself look, even though he couldn't see much in the dim room. It was important that he look because he had asked to see this.

"The internal workings are largely hydraulics." Bucky explained, his tone as mechanical as the arm itself. "The circuitry is up in the shoulder joint. Under the extra armor plating. There was a tracking chip here." He pointed just under the cap of the socket. "But I pulled it out… right after I pulled you out of the lake."

Steve nodded trying to look impassive. Trying to pretend it was just Sam telling him about a new car. Or an improvement Tony had made to his wings. Or…

But it wasn't. It was Bucky. His Bucky and his missing arm.

He'd stopped talking Steve realized, and he'd lost the trail of the conversation to the static building in his head.

"Is…" his voice faltered and he rushed to clear it. "Is it heavy?"

"Yeah." Bucky replied, rippling the plates closed. "But they trained me to compensate."

Would every statement out of Bucky's mouth seize Steve's throat closed?

"Can… Can you feel anything with it?"

"I've got sensation, yeah. Hot and cold. Pressure. Not like the real thing." He flexed his other hand. "But… it's more sometimes. The wiring actually goes all the way to my spinal cord. That's… that's part of why they had to take the whole arm."

"The whole arm wasn't gone from the fall?"

"No. Just from here down." He slashed two of his fingers across his metal plated forearm, just below the elbow. "But what use is a metal hand if it's going to exert so much pressure that it breaks the rest of the arm? So they took the whole thing. Even the socket joint and clavicle."

Steve just shook his head miserably and turned away to stare out into the dark of the backyard. For the span of a few breaths he just watched the fireflies under the eaves, and what few stars he could see. He couldn't look at the metal arm anymore. He couldn't listen to Bucky talk about himself as if he were an object. It hurt too much, even if it didn't actually hurt Bucky. Not that Steve knew anyway. He wasn't ready to ask about that. He just watched the inconsequential things out the darkened window and tried to will the swallowing darkness inside him away.

And after he'd rippled the plates back closed, Bucky in turn watched him. Watched the grief and the guilt spill and spread across his face like oil over water. Watched Steve bargain with and burden himself.

"Do you want to touch it?" Bucky asked, the question falling like a stone into a still pool of water.

Expressions rippled across Steve's face in answer. A myriad of half formed thoughts and wants… but from his mouth only came one answer. "I want to touch you."

Bucky could see it was the truth. Writ in every line of his posture, with his limbs spread to either side, throat practically bared to an advance. But alongside it, carved in deeper and more desperate letters, was the desire to not spook. To not scare. Keep still and perhaps the shy thing will stay and keep being beautiful for you. Where you can see. Where you can almost touch... 

Bucky took it as invitation. He crawled across the scant space that remained on the couch until he was on all fours and Steve was under him. One hand on the arm of the couch and the other on the back. Knees between Steve's knees, pushing them a little further apart. Bucky's shadow fell across his face as he flipped back his hair.

Steve watched him move as if he was watching the act of Creation. Something like a smile, but greater and wilder than a smile, flickered behind his eyes as Bucky came to rest, not quite touching but close enough that he could feel the heat of his body. And Steve was nearly powerless to resist the gravity. To resist the urge to arch up and touch, but he kept still.

_Be still._

_Be still._

_Don't do anything to make him stop._

“Touch me.” Bucky said, with a beckoning jerk of his chin, so that the sparse light caught on the sharp angles of his face.

Steve discovered in that instant… in that single space of a breath and a blink, that he would never deny Bucky anything. Ever. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that he rediscovered it.

He slid one hand up Bucky‘s ribs. Palm open and pressed flat to the fabric. Little more than a grazing caress, careful and experimental. Feeling for the heat. For the expansion of breath. For the kick of a pulse against his skin. Anything to tell him he wasn't hallucinating. That his grief hadn't become so encompassing that he'd lost all sense. All touch with reality. 

_Don't overreach._ He told himself. _If this is a dream, if you lose yourself too much, you'll wake up._

But the inhuman sound that crawled up Bucky’s throat at the contact immediately had him trying for more. Both hands caressed their way up his flanks, fingers digging in just slightly. More sounds. All wordless and wanting. His head fell back, his Adam's apple working convulsively as he tried to find his breath. But he was shaking all over. As if he might fly apart.

“Bucky…” Steve breathed his name, the sound so full of reverence it might have well been a prayer. "Bucky, it's alright. Find your breath. I've got you."

Bucky collapsed then, but only halfway. He stayed partially upright, artificial arm bent at a severe angle as he curled the other around Steve‘s waist. The position seemed uncomfortable, as he was caught between the effort of pulling himself closer to Steve and remaining upright above him. Muscles bunched and twisted. And he kept shifting trying to get closer, but without...

He was trying to keep from touching metal to Steve’s skin, he realized. He was trying to keep the arm off of Steve even as he pressed every inch of the rest of his body against him.

"You can touch me with it." Steve soothed. He thought of running his hand up the arm, but perhaps it was better to ask first. "It's okay... It's okay. I don't mind."

Bucky shook his head. "You don't really want that." His voice thick with want and despair, words puffing out hot against Steve's throat.

"I want you. All of you."

He gave a derisive snort as he shot a glance up at Steve's face. "You should be terrified." he breathed the words out like an acid fog as his lip curled. "I don't have a memory of being in a position like this… Someone under me trying to catch the breath that would be their last. Even… Even you. It was just like this." He'd hoped to see a flicker of fear go through Steve's eyes at last, but there was nothing. Just that steady flame of wanting that just kept burning brighter the harder he tried to douse it.

Steve reached down hovering one hand just under his metal forearm. "Can I?"

Bucky just held his breath and nodded, shifting his weight to his other arm.

Steve's fingers met the jointed metal surface, slipping over his forearm in a slow painting caress. He watched Bucky's face, looking for any sign he should stop, but all Steve could see in his eyes was a slowly unwinding relief. Emboldened, he directed Bucky's hand upwards to cradle his face. When the prosthetic met his jaw, Bucky had to look away. He couldn't look at how perfectly Steve's face fit in the palm of the weapon he had instead of an arm.

Leaning against it, Steve could hear the whirring of the mechanism very clearly. Of the finely tuned machinery that gave Bucky the ability to be gentle and the strength to be brutal in even measure. He turned his head, unable to resist the urge, and kissed his palm, hearing the intake of breath that answered.

"What does that feel like?" he asked, his words fogging the metal.

Bucky exhaled, the air fairly shaking loose from his lungs. "Hot." The word was barely more than half-shaped breath. "Like… like you have a fever."

The corner of Steve's mouth curled. "I used to have fevers all the time. Did they say anything about that in the museum?"

"They said…" he licked his lips, still not looking up. His body was locked over Steve's save where his metallic fingers still eased over Steve's cheek. "They said you were sick. Kept… kept you out of the army at first. But they didn't say what you were sick with."

"Everything." Steve replied, planting another kiss on Bucky's palm and watching with rapt fascination as his breath clouded the metal and made the print of his lips stand out on the polished surface. "I was sick with everything. Weak heart. Weak lungs. I was sick all the time. You name it, I had it. Scarlet Fever. Rheumatic Fever. The works. I was a wreck."

Bucky looked up then. "You… you're lucky you survived back then."

Steve reached out, taking Bucky's face between his palms. "I had you." he said, a sad but sweet smile creeping across is face. "I probably would have died if it wasn't for you. After my mom died from tuberculosis, you were the one that kept me healthy. Kept me out of trouble. You'd…" he stopped at the stricken expression on Bucky's face.

But he urged him on, shifting over him and petting one hand down his chest. "No keep going." His eyes had turned focused now. Hungry… not for touch but for information.

Steve licked his lips carefully. "Y-you'd work long hours at the dockyards. Double shifts. Whatever it took so you could bring medicine home for me and gas for the furnace. You'd cook dinner. And then you'd sit up with me while I coughed my head off. You'd h-hold me when the fevers got bad. So bad I'd hallucinate and shake. And you'd just hold me. All night long. And then in the morning you'd go back and do it all again. Have one of the neighbors check in on me during the day."

Bucky's eyes had glazed over at the story, his metal fingers tracing the arch of Steve's cheekbone. The slope of his jaw. The hollow of his throat where his pulse kicked hot and strong.

"Do you remember?" Steve asked, cocking his head a little.

But Bucky shook his head, making his long hair fall in his face. Steve reached up and pushed it back on instinct, shocked to find Bucky practically nuzzling against his wrist.

"Do you like that?" he asked, sinking his fingers into the roots of his hair and scratching his way along his scalp.

"Yeah." Bucky sighed, looking up at Steve from under his ridiculously dark eyelashes. "What… what did I like?"

"What did you like?" Steve repeated the question blankly.

"You said we were… a thing. An item. Something." Bucky said, fighting between a frown and a smile. "What did I like?"

"You…" Steve swallowed and almost laughed. He was certainly smiling. "You liked kissing."

Bucky did smile then, a teasing twist of his mouth. "I would think most people like kissing."

"But you really did." Steve said, words coming a little easier when he could sense Bucky was leaning into the conversation. "And you were really good at it."

Something sweetly feral began to roam around behind Bucky's eyes, and his smile grew teeth. "Was I?"

If Steve were somebody else. Tony. Clint. Sam. Hell, maybe even Natasha if she were caught in the right mood. If Steve was somebody else, he would have the perfect line for that. The perfect bait. The perfect come hither sentiment that would be the verbal equivalent of a crooked finger and batted eyelashes.

But he wasn't that. He'd never been like that. And so with Bucky's face between his hands, he leaned up and kissed him. Just a dry press of lips. Light but insistent. 

Bucky went still over him. Everything freezing in place for the span of two breaths. They both hung there, suspended like motes of dust in still air. Both a little surprised. And more than a little wanting.

Steve was about to pull back, fearing he'd finally done it and overstepped, when suddenly Bucky started moving. Just his lips at first, almost as if he were pulling water from a glass. Then his jaw. And then his hands came to life before he finally lowered himself into Steve's embrace and abandoned himself to the kiss.

He allowed Steve to retain control for awhile, letting him kiss a lazy circle around his mouth as if he were memorizing every bend and curve of his lips. He had Bucky moaning as he pulled his bottom lip into his mouth. No teeth. Not even the hint of teeth, and barely a brush of tongue. As if he were shy of tasting him.

That care… that deference… it lit fire to something buried deep. Bucky licked along the seam of Steve's mouth, barely able to suppress a groan when his lips parted easy as anything and let Bucky's tongue slip past his teeth. He licked into Steve's mouth, reveling in the wonderful sensation of sweet, humid warmth. And it was all accompanied by Steve's wandering hands. He seemed to be touching everywhere at once. Across his back. Twined into his hair. Down his sides to tug his hips flush to…

Steve broke the kiss when Bucky ground down against his growing erection. "I'm sorry. I…"

"We don't have to stop." Bucky said. "Unless…"

Steve just looked at him with an expression of pitiable want and confusion. "I don't… I don't want to… if…"

"Show me what I liked." Bucky prompted, both hands skating down the muscled plane of Steve's torso. His fingers caught the hem of his shirt, and he tugged it almost as a question. Steve had it off in a flash. A ripple of muscle and a pull of fabric and it was gone. Bucky just stared for a moment before he found himself chuckling. He dragged his fingers down Steve's chest again.

"What are you laughing at?" Steve said, arching into the caress.

"I don't need to remember a damn thing about anything to know I like this." He said, leaning down to kiss a line straight down Steve's breastbone and into the furrow of his abs.

"I didn't always look like this." Steve said, watching him and willing his breath to continue supporting his words. "I used to be skinny. Hollow chested and knock-kneed."

Bucky looked up at him from under his eyelashes, eyes glinting in the dark. "Did it matter to me back then?"

Steve shook his head, but then a smile caught the corner of his mouth. "No, but…"

"But what?" Bucky bumped his nose under Steve's chin before placing a kiss over his galloping pulse.

"After I rescued you from Zola's lab? It was the first time you saw me after the serum. And you showed up in my tent that night, and after ripping me up one side and down the other for coming to save you, you practically ripped my clothes off. Had to replace two buttons on my uniform."

Bucky's hands tightened where they lay currently on Steve's hips. He gave a little involuntary roll of his pelvis, showcasing his own swelling erection that was not so well hidden by his sweatpants. Steve moaned at the contact. Or more accurately, he moaned at the fact that Bucky was as into what was happening as he was. He always was the bolder of the two of them. The most brazen. It was good to see that hadn't changed.

Speaking of bold, Bucky reached down cupping Steve's cock through the thick material of his sweatpants, watching with rapt attention as he practically melted back through the couch. His head fell back and his eyes drooped closed, and suddenly Bucky couldn't stand the thought of not being able to see what he was doing to Steve as he gently stroked him. He hooked the fingers of his metal hand behind Steve's neck, cradling his face and turning it so he could see every emotion that flitted across his handsome features. Somewhere in the tangle of caresses and groans, his thumb fell across Steve's kiss-swollen lips…

And he was certain he had blown a circuit somewhere in his arm when Steve took the ball of his metal thumb into his mouth and sucked. Bucky cried out sharply, his hand freezing where it was over Steve's shaft and his eyes cinching shut. The inside of Steve's mouth was forge hot. So hot it almost burned. He couldn't feel things like slick or soft or velvet, but he could feel heat. And pressure as Steve's tongue worked along the underside of his thumb. The world had begun to pivot on the point where lips slipped over metal. His heart hammered and his breath went backwards in a long sucking gasp. 

When the initial shock passed, Bucky resumed stroking Steve through his pajamas, intent now on repaying the favor of all the teasing. But he could barely focus. Steve had lost all pretense of being coy or deferential. After seeing that initial reaction, he licked and nibbled and sucked on the metal digit while maintaining unflinching eye contact. He didn't care that Bucky's hand barely moved where it lay over his cock. He lived for the crackling fire that he could ignite in his slate-colored eyes with only his tongue.

Bucky shifted over him, his own cock slotting against the hollow of Steve's hips and he ground down. The sound he made was feral and beautiful and Steve drank it in as he pulled the full length of Bucky's thumb into his mouth. He could feel the plates shifting between his teeth. Feel the vibrations of the tiny moving parts as his fingers clenched against his jaw. 

"Steve, please…" he whispered brokenly. "Tell me… I want to know more."

He pulled off his thumb with a wet sound. "You liked it when I sucked your cock." Steve said, mouthing his way down the swell of the joint towards his wrist. 

"I did…? You'd..."

"I would get on my knees for you and just… God, the sounds you made. The way you looked. I could never get enough of it."

"Steve…" Bucky's hips were still working against Steve's, grinding out a serpentine pattern.

"Do you want me to show you?" Steve asked recklessly, his voice gone dark and warm. He was brave now, drunk with the sight of Bucky above him, staring down at him with half-lidded eyes and parted lips. "You want me to do it how you like?"

Bucky could only nod, with his mouth hanging open.

"Hop up." he tapped him on the hip and they disentangled themselves from each other and the tiny couch.

Something had changed in Bucky and Steve realized it as they moved from the couch to the bed. Since Steve had started touching him… kissing him and caressing him, he'd gone still and shivery. He'd stopped talking. The only words he seemed to have between desperate kisses were Steve's name and "Please." Everything else was an incoherent tangle of whines and moans.

Steve settled him across the bed and then curled up next to him, resting his hand on Bucky's clothed cock and feeling it kick and twitch under his palm. His eyes cinched shut and another whine crawled up his throat at the contact. The furrow of his brow cut deep suddenly, as he gasped desperately for a steady breath.

"Bucky." Steve said, and was only answered by loud panting. "Bucky, look at me." Bucky did then, throwing his eyes open wide to show pupils blown so dark that there was only a bare ring of gun metal gray visible around the edge. "Bucky, is this too much? I can slow down."

"I want it." Bucky said, the words half coming out through gritted teeth. "I want you. I want your mouth on me. I want to remember your mouth on me, Steve. Please, I…" the pleas broke off there turning into more whining as his hips rolled against Steve's palm seeking more friction. 

Steve smoothed his hair back from his face, hoping to take away some of the anguished, craving lines as well. "Bucky… Bucky, I just want-"

"I… I'm cold, Steve." he ground out. "I feel cold. All the time. Do… I don't ever… I don't remember being touched like this, Steve. I'm… I'm so cold."

Something desperate cracked in Steve's heart at those words… _I'm cold._ Instantly, all his tenuous, guessing plans for the evening evaporated. Suddenly, all he wanted to do was roll Bucky up in the old quilt he kept under the bed. Roll them both up and hold him until he stopped shaking. Until he felt warm again. Until he remembered feeling warm again. Until he remembered how hot Steve had been when he'd had those fevers, and how Bucky had held him close night after ni-

"Your mouth… Steve, please."

"Alright." Steve nosed at Bucky's jaw until he could capture his lips with his own. They kissed with lazy, licking hunger as Steve worked the heel of his hand against the rock hard bulge in Bucky's pants. His mouth slid lower, tracing each contour it found. Jaw. Throat. Breastbone. Teasing one nipple through the sleep shirt until he'd left a dark wet spot and Bucky was once again a writhing incoherent mess. 

He worked his way lower and lower until he'd slid off the end of the bed levelling his nose with the pronounced tent under the drawstring of his pants. Bucky just melted back against the mattress, chest heaving as if his ribs themselves were clawing for air. But something felt wrong to Steve… or just off. Something about their position. About the angle… about...

"Press up on your elbows." Steve instructed, trying to keep his voice smooth and confident even though it wanted to falter on every syllable. "You always liked to watch."

Bucky did as he was told but with breathless protest. "I don't know if I can watch you and not come."

"I won't let you come until I'm done." Steve promised, something of a cocky smile belatedly pulling at his mouth. And Bucky's expression momentarily answered it in kind. Just a flicker of a real smile. That old smile that Steve so often wanted to eat from his lips back in the day.

He reached up and peeled down the sleep pants and was surprised to find him bare beneath. It stole his breath for a moment as he just stared at the flushed length of Bucky's cock, the head slick with precome that made Steve's mouth water. He had planned to tease him a little longer, mouth at his erection through the fabric, but he lost that train of thought immediately. 

As his hand closed over the thick shaft, Steve realized there was something a little thrilling about the thought of Bucky not wearing underwear. A preening, possessive streak ignited at the idea that the clothes Steve had given him were the closest thing to his body other than Steve's hands. And he was making a mess of both at present.

For a moment, Steve revelled in how responsive Bucky was. He'd never been like this… before. Even when he was all wound up he'd still found some way to still be cocksure… in control… teasing even from a position like this one. But here he was laid across Steve's bed, half dressed and completely gone. Reduced to whining and begging and shallowly thrusting into Steve's fist. Seventy years ago, Steve would have been electrified at the prospect of Bucky being so devoid of all higher function. Just a ball of craving, grasping want. 

But not now. He had not asked for teasing. For what he didn't even know he wanted, much less how to ask for, to be held out of reach. He'd asked to be reminded of who he was.

This wasn't who Bucky was. Maybe they could find this again later - this raw, fevered wanting, but that's not what he wanted now.

Steve reached up and caught his metal hand, pulling it around so that his fingers sank into the short hairs at the base of Steve's neck. He tightened his fingers for him, sharing a knowing look before leveling himself with Bucky's cock and licking his lips.

The first pass of his tongue just grazed the head, catching at the flare and swiping through the bead of precome that he'd coaxed out with his fist. Bucky went rigid at the contact, fingers digging in at the base of Steve's skull. Then Steve kissed just under where he licked, lips pulling at that soft ridge of skin making Bucky's entire body go taut like a drawn bow. He groaned and tried to remember how to breathe as Steve repeated the motion. Again and again… alternating licks and kisses. He was so receptive. So responsive like this. 

_Enjoy it._ Steve told himself, now that he was giving him what he wanted. _He probably won't be like this again._

_If there is an again…_

He violently shoved the thought down with others of its kind. Thoughts like… What if HYDRA came for Bucky? What if the CIA or someone else comes for him? What if Bucky just leaves in the morning? Steve wakes up and he's gone…

_No. Not the time._

Steve distracted himself by running his nose and then his lips up the full length of Bucky's cock, inhaling the heady scent of him and pulling it down into his core. Then he replaced his lips with his tongue, a long flat swipe that curled at the edges, cradling his girth as much as he was able.

"Steve…" His name was little more than a long, half-voiced moan. 

He took pity on Bucky then, and sucked the head of his cock just past his teeth, listening to the hitch of breath and feeling the full body shudder that passed through him from crown to toes. His fingers tightened again, metal eating into the skin of his neck. There would be bruises, and Steve was okay with this. 

Steve sucked, pulling him deeper and wrapping his lips tighter. His cheeks hollowed, making the architecture of his face stand out that much more. Bucky quickly realized he had been right in his estimations. If he watched this, he would come. But Steve had also been right about something. Bucky wasn't coming until Steve decided it was time. He had one hand firmly wrapped around the base of his cock, just enough pressure to keep him from tipping over the edge. And there was just enough suction from his sinfully hot mouth to keep him balanced on that edge.

_Steve knew his body better than he did…_

With no place else for it to go, Bucky could feel a liquid heat working its way down through his limbs. His face flushed. His chest flushed. His cock ached where Steve still had it half pulled into his mouth, working the underside expertly with his tongue. He looked beautiful like this - eyes half closed, veiled in thick lashes. And brow furrowed in the prettiest frown as he concentrated, feeling every move and vibration and responding. His mouth in particular looked beautiful like this, stretched to fit around him like it was made for this purpose.

His hand tightened in Steve's hair, half in response to the primalness of the thought, and half hoping to encourage him to take more. And he did take more. 

He took more and then some.

The suction increased and suddenly he was taking Bucky all the way down. Down past the velvet of his tongue and the slick of his palate all the way into the tight clutch of his throat. All the air left Bucky's body in a whispering rush and he curled in on himself to watch as Steve buried his nose in the dark thatch of hair that trailed up from the base of his cock. He held himself there for a moment, drawing his tongue up and down the fat vein in the underside of the shaft, before pulling off with a long suck that trailed spit from his bottom lip.

"Jesus, Steve…" Bucky panted, head falling back for a moment before he realized he didn't want to miss a moment of this.

Steve sucked him back down again, pumping him in and out of his mouth twice before swallowing his length down to the root again. He reached out, grasping for Bucky's other hand. Bucky tangled their fingers together, but Steve just tugged insistently, pressing his palm against his own throat. Bucky was confused at first until there was another wet pull from Steve's mouth.

And he could see… no, Steve was letting him feel that he'd taken him all the way down. All the way into the slick clutch of his throat. His Adam's apple bobbed and convulsed as his length throbbed in the grip of Steve's throat. Oh God… _oh God…_

It had all been preamble up until now. Just the preshow. This was the main event. Steve's face turning red with effort as he swallowed and swallowed, only pulling back enough to gasp for half a breath with nose flared before diving down again. A vein pulsed in his forehead. His eyes cinched tight with the effort of staying down as long as possible. Of swallowing as many times as he could before he needed air. His face was wrung with the effort of choosing pleasuring Bucky over breathing. 

But pleasure won. Every time. 

Bucky thought about telling him to stop. About telling him to take it easy. Did he remember that from before? It sounded like something he might've said… to someone smaller? To someone that might actually hurt themselves doing this? No… no, he didn't remember ever doing this. But it was something he could see himself doing. Something he knew he should do.

Was that the same as remembering?

These thoughts came, but were left unvoiced. Words were not on the table. Breathing was barely on the table. All Bucky could do was lie there, cradling Steve's throat as it cradled his aching cock and just feel. His vision had gone hazy at the edges as pressure built down low in his hips. When he finally came… when Steve let him come, he was going to fly apart. And he wanted to so bad. If only because he knew Steve would catch all the pieces.

As if reading his thoughts, Steve drew back enough to take two long, deep pulls of air as his tongue worked the underside of Bucky's shaft. The hand gripping the base of his cock let go and slid back, first cupping his balls before pressing fingers to the sensitive bundle of nerves buried deep at the base of his cock. And with plenty of air in reserve, Steve swallowed him down again, taking him as deep as he could, throat clenching around the head as he rocked his hand around him.

The pressure ignited, and erupted out from Bucky's core like lava; hot and viscous and sticking everywhere it touched. His vision when white, and he might've yelled… a swear or something shaped vaguely like Steve's name. Maybe both. Maybe nothing… just a long cry balanced on top of the waves of pleasure that flooded him, leaving him loose and languid.

_And warm._

When his vision cleared, he looked down, and Steve was still sucking him. Not like he had before. Not with purpose or planning… just as if he were savoring him. Drawing the last draught of water from a drying well. Bucky was a hypersensitive mess by that point with every muscle seeming to twitch of its own accord. In any other situation, Bucky might've asked for a moment to gather himself, and to remember how to pull air into his body, but seeing the serene expression on Steve's face, he let him carry on as long as he liked.

When he finally pulled back, licking his swollen lips, Steve smiled up at him. Bashful and beautiful and… wholesome. Wholesome was the word that came to mind, despite his blown pupils, flushed face, and lips stained with effort. As he crawled up Bucky's body, Bucky threw his metal arm behind his head gathering Steve to him as if on autopilot.

"That's what I liked?" He asked, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth up.

"That's what you liked." Steve answered, still not quite able to meet his eyes. "Among other things."

"Among other things?" Bucky arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah… among other things."

Bucky skated his free hand up Steve's flank and was rewarded as he pressed against his body, back pulling into a beautiful arch in his hand. His cock, hard as granite it seemed, nudged his hip insistently making Steve pull away self-consciously.

"No no…" Bucky coaxed, laying his hand flat over the small of Steve's back to keep him close. "What did I like to do to you?" He said, pulling Steve's body flush to his, making his cock drag again.

It seemed to take a second for Steve's brain to reboot from the sweet friction of his clothed cock against the hard ridge of Bucky's hipbone. "Y-you were always really um… handsy?"

"Handsy." Bucky repeated, his smirk growing teeth.

"Yeah, you… you…" he seemed to simultaneously arch back into Bucky's arm and rub himself against his hip, unable to decide which he wanted more. "You would just put your hands all over me when you would get me off. Like… like you just…"

"Show me." Bucky prompted, nosing at his jaw and earning himself a quick, dirty kiss.

Steve nodded, his eyes a little foggy as he pushed himself up onto his knees. He straddled Bucky's hips, palming himself for a second, not for pleasure but as if he was willing everything to slow down. Bucky tangled his right hand with Steve's while the other stayed pillowed behind his head for the time being.

"You would get me over you like this. And… and you would just play with me. And I'd just let you." Steve let his free hand play down the impressive expanse of his chest, and Bucky chased the gesture with the hand still caught in Steve's grip. "I let you do whatever you want. You loved to get me worked up. God, you put your hands on me like you owned me, Buck. And I just ate it up."

Bucky reached down between Steve's legs and skimmed his fingers over the tent in his sleep pants. He was huge. Far more than a palmful. A double handful at least. Steve's eyes rolled closed at the fresh pressure of his palm, hands burying themselves in his hair as his chest arched and heaved. He was like a sculpture given life. Given breath. Great panting breaths that desperately tried to pull in enough air to fuel the pleasured fire that raged far below.

_Like he owned him, huh? Like anyone could own this._

_Apparently, he did once._

_Maybe he still did._

He pulled his other arm free and untied the knot holding up Steve's pants. He reached inside with his flesh and blood hand, pulling his erection free and palming as much of it as he could. Steve's mouth fell open in a wordless groan as his hips bucked of their own accord, seeking more. More friction. More warmth. More everything.

He pitched forward then, freeing himself to move, and Bucky petted up the pretty arch in his back with his metal hand. 

"More… more please." Steve begged, his brow furrowed and the words coming out thready.

But Bucky didn't acquiesce right away. Unlike Steve who wanted him to have everything he wanted the instant he wanted it, Bucky was content to play. Content to experiment with different touches. The back of his knuckles up and down the shaft. Just a few fingers idly circling the flared head, smearing the precome that dripped down onto Bucky's chest. He slotted his metal fingers in between Steve's ribs, petted and squeezed his ass, marveling at the muscles that he could see rippling under his beautiful skin. He wanted to take his cock in both hands. To work it with both fists… watch Steve thrust and writhe and eventually give him enough pressure to get off.

But he wasn't ready for that yet. He didn't trust the weapon attached to his shoulder to be capable of such a delicate task. But he knew of something else he wanted to try.

He let his metal hand play down Steve's chest, the ridged pads catching on one nipple. Steve hummed, chest puffing out and pushing into the contact. So Bucky repeated the motion, a hair more pressure. Just a little more drag. It earned him an actual moan that time when his fingers caught simultaneously on his nipple and on the ridge of flesh just under the head of his cock.

Not enough pressure. Never enough pressure.

"Buck… please… more please."

He looked so pretty when he begged. If his mouth wasn't meant for sucking cock, it was meant for begging. No wonder Bucky would touch him like he owned him. He could probably get Steve to agree to anything like this. All worked up and flushed and wanting nothing but the touch of his hands. Even the metal one.

That made Bucky wonder…

On the next stroke of Steve's chest, he caught his nipple between his metal thumb and forefinger. He didn't pinch, but he did roll it watching as a new circuit connected to further Steve's pleasure. The metal stole the warmth from his skin, but heat was not in short supply as a handsome flush crept over Steve's chest, bleeding like ink over his fair skin.

He tightened his grip, watching with rapt attention as Steve's brow pinched. "Buck…"

"Is this it?" Bucky asked, a husky rasp to his voice. "Is this how I would do it?"

"Yes… yes…" Steve whined, and Bucky could hear in the timbre of his voice that he wasn't lying or placating. There was a familiarity, and a profound relief buried in that desperate sound. His whole body worked, rippling and pistoning to drive his cock faster and harder into Bucky's fist. Something was coming unraveled in Steve as he half collapsed over him. And Bucky caught him with his metal arm, drawing him in for a kiss that was more teeth and tongue and hungry sound than anything else.

"Don't stop… please…" Steve panted the words into Bucky's open mouth and he swallowed them with more kisses.

"I'm not, Steve. I'm not."

His metal hand found Steve's nipple again and pinched just lightly. But it was enough. The hard metal and his slick hand and the heat of his mouth coalesced suddenly. His spine curled and then bowed, and Steve came with a surprised shout. He gushed over Bucky's fist, painting his chest with ribbons of white as he bucked and shook with the shock and relief of it. 

Bucky caught him as his joints gave and he pitched forward. He gathered him up and gently eased him down to his side, carding careful fingers through his hair tracing all the way down from his hairline to the nape of his neck. He shivered against his touches, but not from cold.

"I should… I should get us a towel." Steve said, but his trembling was still so strong he didn't even make an attempt to stand.

Bucky patted his hip and laid a kiss on his temple. "Relax. I'll get it."

Steve made a noise of protest but Bucky was already standing. He headed to the bathroom, there was a sound of running water, and then he returned with a washcloth. He'd already wiped himself down, Steve noticed. He sat on the bed rather than lay down, and set to wiping Steve down with sweeping, gentle strokes. Steve followed the natural-seeming motion and Bucky couldn't help but notice.

"Did I ever do anything like this?" Bucky asked.

Steve nodded, still watching his hand as it passed the damp washcloth over his chest. He was clean already. But Steve could tell by the furrow in Bucky's brow that now it was just about the motion. About trying to remember. About trying to be in two places at once.

"If… if we weren't cleaning up after ourselves…" Bucky swore he saw him blush in the dark. This man had just expertly deepthroated his cock and he still blushed when he talked about it. "You would do this to help bring my fever down. Especially if you hadn't been able to go get fever powder."

"And then I would hold you."

"Yeah." Steve answered, his voice turning hazy and guarded again. "We… we don't have to if… if it's-"

"Come here." Bucky stood again, tossing the towel aside, and pulled back the sheets. Steve obediently climbed into bed properly as Bucky slipped in behind him, draping himself over Steve's back and shoulders so that they touched from ankle to collarbone. But they discovered it was awkward as they settled. Steve was so broad through the shoulders that Bucky barely fit around him, and ended up with his face pressed between his shoulder blades. But they stayed like that for a long time anyway. Just breathing and feeling each other, and Bucky kissing his way back and forth between Steve's shoulders.

"This worked better when I was small." Steve finally admitted when they'd both grown a little fidgety.

"What did we do after you got bigger?"

Steve hesitated before peeking back over his shoulder. "I held you."

There was a brief breath and then he felt Bucky's head nod against his spine. Then he rolled over, dragging Steve easily along with him. But this position presented its own issue. Namely Bucky's metal arm. There was no easy way for Steve to arrange himself where he wouldn't be touching it.

It was Bucky's turn to awkwardly talk over his shoulder. "Should we switch sides? So you don't have… have to sleep with your hand on this arm?"

Steve just shook his head and laced their mismatched fingers together, feeling the give and take of heat and cold between the metal and his flesh. There was still plenty of warmth to give. He kissed an exposed bit of scar tissue at the cap of his shoulder where man joined to machine. He kissed it like it was a holy relic and then murmured into Bucky's hair. 

"Go to sleep, Buck."

***

When consciousness returned, Steve could tell the sun had not come up yet, though he did not open his eyes. He didn't do anything but lay there. Lay there and make peace with the fact that he was about to open his eyes and find an empty space in the bed next to him. It had been a dream. Or Bucky had left, which made it a dream either way. But the pillow beside him would be empty regardless.

And lo was it so.

The sheets still smelled like him. Like their heated tangle from the previous night. But Bucky was not there.

But he was in the room, as it turned out. Steve found him standing at the picture window, fully dressed in his old clothes. A black silhouette set against the growing threat of dawn.

"I almost left before you woke up." Bucky said, turning his head ever so slightly to speak over his shoulder. He must've heard Steve's breathing change. Or the shift in the sheets as he woke.

Steve blinked stupidly, brain still half asleep. "I'm glad you didn't."

Bucky sighed turning back to the window. "That won't make this hurt any less."

Steve swallowed against the stale taste in his mouth, and against the lump returning to its perch in his throat. "You're… you're really going?"

Bucky still wasn't looking at him. "I can't stay. If they find me-"

"They have to go through me." Steve cut him off, a defiant edge to his tone.

"That's… it won't be that easy, Steve."

"I'm not asking for easy." Steve said, pulling himself out of bed and crossing to stand next to Bucky. "When the fuck have I ever asked for easy? You don't need your memories to know the answer to that."

Bucky still didn't look at him, his gray eyes still fixed on the similarly gray sky.

_It was going to rain today._

"I've never asked for easy, Buck. And I've never gotten it either."

Bucky shook his head and looked down at his boots. "I can't ask this of you Steve. There's… you're building a life here."

"Yeah. I am. I'm building something here specifically with room for you." Steve planted a hand on his metal shoulder and turned him to face him. "We have been looking for you. I have been looking for you. I don't… I don't even really know for how long. I could figure it out but…"

Bucky shook his head, wilting a little. "Steve… I'm… I'm not the same guy. I don't… I can't live in a place like this. With you. They'll… they're trying to find me and… I just can't ask you to upend all this for-"

"You're not asking for anything. I'm telling you that… that you're my friend… that you're…"

"I'm not the same guy, Steve." Bucky repeated. 

"That's not true!" He fairly shouted before jerking on the choke chain on his temper. "That's not true, Buck." 

_Arguing…_ did Bucky remember this? He seemed to know how to argue with Steve as surely as he knew how to get him off. How to kiss him. How to...

Bucky shook himself hard. "It is true." He finally made himself look Steve in the face, forcing his eyes to go hard. "Do you know what I thought the first time I walked into this place?"

Steve swallowed. "That I'm probably still single?" He'd hoped for a smile.

He was disappointed.

"That it would be ridiculously easy to assassinate you through this window. The trees back there," He pointed for emphasis with a metal finger. "Perfect sniper blind."

"You would have known that before. You were the best shot on the Commandos."

"But that wouldn't have been my first impression of someone's house, Steve." he retorted. "I would… I would've… I don't know what I would have thought."

"You'd have been sizing up the bed." Steve said softly, a smile just ghosting his lips. "Figuring out how fast you were going to get me into it."

Bucky snorted and shook his head again. "I'm not that guy anymore."

Steve sighed, putting his hands on his hips. "Neither am I."

Bucky looked up at him, a confused frown bent across his brow. "What?"

"Neither am I." Steve repeated. "I'm… I'm not the same either. You lose too much that you care about and you eventually start to lose yourself too. I've… I woke up in the future, Buck. Alone. No you. No Peggy. Nothing… just..." 

His lip wobbled then. That perfect mouth quivered and shook before a shocked earthquake of a sob worked its way up and out. His lips gave. And then his face. And then his eyes poured out a great gout of hot tears. And finally his knees buckled, dropping him to the floor in front of Bucky as he heaved with a heavy, shuddering sob.

"Bucky, please don't leave. Please don't. I can't… I can't… not without you. I just can't. Please. Please." he begged, sagging back on his heels with his head bowed. "I know it won't be the same, but I don't want the same. I just want you… I want to know you're safe. I want to keep you safe. I don't care if they come for you because they will go through me. Just like they should have back on that train…" A fresh wave of tears shook him like a predator shaking prey. "Just… just please… Buck, please."

Bucky had remained quiet during all of this. He'd promised himself, no matter what Steve said. No matter what he did. That he was going to leave. But somehow, the reality of Steve Rogers on his knees begging him to stay was not something he was prepared for. No matter who he was now. 

He pushed the palm of his right hand under Steve's chin, lifting his tear stained face. He licked his lips, watching Steve's desperation leak down his ruddy face like melting snow. He'd stopped talking at some point, though that wasn't entirely true. His beautiful, trembling lips still worked, trying over and over to scrape together the word "please." Or maybe it was Bucky's name. They looked the same stained with so much grief.

"You've never asked me for anything. Ever. Have you?" Bucky said, his voice frightfully dispassionate in his own ears.

Steve shook his head, trying and failing to hide his face because Bucky's grip on his chin turned to iron. "Please." he actually mustered the word this time. "Bucky… Bucky, please."

"I don't remember, of course." Bucky went on, keeping a tight rein on the emotion in his voice. "I don’t remember my name. Or my mother’s face. Or where we went to school or where we lived together or the bed where I would hold you when you were sick. But I know things… it’s not the same as remembering, but between the museum and what you've told me… I know you've never ever asked me for anything. Am I right?"

Steve nodded miserably as he gave a saturated sniff.

Bucky blinked twice, a steady silence filling the space between them as the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Even Steve had stopped making sound, though his ribs convulsed with unvoiced sobs.

And in that silent space, Bucky allowed himself to calculate. He weighed the pursuit by HYDRA agents against the memories he stood to regain. He weighed the collateral damage if innocents got involved against the freedom he could lose if he worried about the possibilities of such things. And he weighed a life on the run versus a life tied to one place. Tied to someone who would pick up and run with him. Who seemed not only willing but ready to. Or a third option… Someone who would run after him. Steve wouldn't stop… would he? Put that on the balancing scale too...

But when he weighed anything against the look at this moment in Steve's fathomless blue eyes, it lost. Not the fear of being recaptured. Not the threat of the CIA or whoever would be coming after him. Not even his fear of himself. Or the guilt of destroying everything Steve seemed to have here. The world was at his feet, quite literally. All he had to do was say...

"Okay." he heard himself whisper. And it was as if the whole world sighed in relief.

Steve certainly did, twisting the exhale out into a moan as he pitched forward, forehead resting on Bucky's hip. His fingers dug in and a sob strung with relief and want and a thousand emotions that didn't have proper names tore itself from his throat. 

Bucky folded himself down around Steve, nose pressed into his mussed hair. "Okay… Okay okay…" was all he could repeat, as if he needed to tell the words to every strand of hair or thread in his shirt. "Okay…"

And as the initial wave of relief washed away, and Steve pulled himself to his feet. He tugged Bucky close, one hand in his hair and the other splayed across the small of his back. A possessive motion, they both realized, and they decided together that they craved it. And as they rocked and swayed, with Bucky tucked securely against the shadow of his throat, Steve watched the sun rise, shards of light cutting through the "sniper blind" of trees at the far end of the yard.

Maybe he should look at getting this glass replaced if it worried Bucky so much. Maybe Agent 13… what was her name? Not Kate, but… anyway, she probably knew someone who could help with that.

Bucky seemed unaware of this internal debate as he nuzzled against the hollow of Steve's throat. "I still don't remember any of it, Steve." he said, looking up at him, his eyes still a cloudy gray, even in the fresh sunlight. "I'm… what if I'm really not who you remember?"

"You are. It'll come back. And if it doesn't, you and I will rebuild it. Together."

Bucky shook his head, his face scrunching. "Do… why would you do that?"

_Why._

He hadn't said it out loud until now, but it was the question that had been hanging over the whole evening for Bucky. He realized it as the sunlight crept into the room to paint the walls in patient golden strokes. It was the one question that he couldn't pin an answer to. Nothing made sense except...

"Because I love you, Buck." Steve answered, his voice steady for the first time that Bucky could remember. "And trust me. I'm the person who has known you the longest… on both sides of… of all this. You're still you."

Bucky hung his head a little, smoothing his hands over the soft cotton of Steve's shirt before sneaking both hands up under the hem. "I trust you." he whispered against Steve's collar before he leaned up to capture Steve's lips in a sweet kiss. Not unlike the kiss they should have shared this morning, both still half dressed and sleepy.

_I trust you._

That was better than any "I love you too." for Steve.

A knock sounded at the door and Bucky tensed, involuntarily pulling Steve closer and twisting so the broad side of his metal arm faced the front of the house.

"Easy." The word was out of Steve's mouth on instinct, as he petted his hand over the bunched muscles in Bucky's shoulders. "It's Sam. He's here to pick me up. Or he thinks he is. We're… we were leaving this morning."

Bucky frowned up at him. "Leaving to go where?"

Steve smiled then. A real smile that touched his eyes and made them catch the sun. "To find you, Buck."

***

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me over on Tumblr at @littlethingwithfeathers. Come say hi! I don't bite!


End file.
